


and if I’d get the chance, I’d take your hand and ask you for a dance

by here_withoutyou



Series: got a memory of you I carry in my soul, I wrap it close around me when the nights get cold [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Canon Compliant, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Steve Rogers, I Made Myself Cry, Not A Fix-It, Romanogers deserved better, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 21:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/here_withoutyou/pseuds/here_withoutyou
Summary: They say that if you get too stuck on the past, you miss out on what is right in front of you. When Steve is dancing with Peggy, he has to realize just how true that is.





	and if I’d get the chance, I’d take your hand and ask you for a dance

**Author's Note:**

> I really hated the way Steve just moved on from Natasha like she didn’t mean anything and just escapes back into his past. Yes, in the beginning of those movies he was still very much stuck in it, but to me it felt like he was moving on more and more and she was part of what helped him to do that. Now to just make him stuck in the past again and not let him move on just feels so wrong.  
> I still think Steve and Natasha are meant to be together. They complete each other perfectly and it seems like they learned so much from each other. They have been through so much together and even after everything, they were still there for each other, supported each other and still chose each other to hold onto when everything else fell apart. If that fact doesn’t proof that they were meant to be together then what the hell? I mean what did he actually have with Peggy compared to that that made her so much more special to him? Yes, maybe they were in love for a bit and she meant a lot, but to me it will always just be more of a fling tbh. Just move on and realize that you can fall in love more than just once.  
> Also I think even after the thing with Bruce happened it always shines through that Nat could imagine something with him and it just hurts me that he just casts her aside for this lost love. She deserved him so much more than Peggy does.  
> Ugh... I’m sorry I’m starting to ramble...  
> Anyway, in my mind he realizes that and really starts to regret it when he is dancing with Peggy. I guess I’m cruel like that. 
> 
> Also I was listening to this song when I wrote this, so now it reminds me of them.

_I guess I kinda liked the way you helped me escape_  
 _Now the day bleeds into nightfall_  
 _And you’re not here_   
_To get me through it all_  
 _I let my guard down_  
 _And then you pulled the rug_  
 _I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved_  
 _– Someone You Loved — Lewis Capaldi_

So Steve was here now. He was here and he finally got what he had always wanted. He finally had a chance to get back what he had lost. He finally got everything he ever dreamed of. 

_Didn’t he?_

And he was happy about that, thankful for it. 

_Wasn’t he?_

The woman in his arms was the love of his life. She was the one he had been thinking about almost every day of his life for more than the past decade – well, if he was honest with himself, the moments in which he had missed her had gotten less and less with time, especially in the past few years, especially since he had started working with Natasha by his side. But a lot had happened in those years – his world had fallen apart over and over again, he had to fight to save the world, and then the world had ended all of the sudden and everything had been in shatters – so thinking of her a little bit less had seemed like a natural side effect of all those events to him at the time. Besides, this wasn’t the point here. He finally had her back. He finally held her in his arms again and he was happy about that. Incredibly happy. 

Then why didn’t it feel like it?   
Why did everything about this feel so terribly off, so terribly _wrong?_  
Why did the woman in his arms suddenly feel like a stranger – their steps out of sync, the smell she sent off the wrong one, the heat radiating from her body like the wrong kind?  
Why did it feel like he didn’t belong here?  
Why did he, when he smoothed his fingers through her hair, suddenly wish it was a fiery red instead of her dark brown shade? Why did he, when he looked into those deep brown eyes, looking up at him so full of love, suddenly wish they were a bright green color, looking at him with amusement and a teasing sparkle in them?

Why did he, when he spoke to the sweet and caring girl in his arms, or when she gave him one of her soft warm smiles, suddenly crave conversations full of mockery and sarcasm, crave rough edges with a softness hidden underneath them in the voice speaking to him, crave full lips curled up in a teasing smirk instead of easy smiles? Why did he crave a heart that was well hidden behind walls and amours, slowly unraveling to him bit by bit, instead of one that easily opened up to him? Why did he crave trust that he had to earn, not the trust that was so willingly given to him by Peggy?

In his heart, Steve knew the answer to all those questions, knew the reason even though he didn’t want to accept it. Knew that the reason had green eyes and red hair. The reason was Natasha Romanoff, or more specifically Natalia Alianovna Romanova. She was the reason that he had been able to learn to live again – to learn to love again. She was the reason his heart was aching now and his thoughts were drifting off. She was the reason that he wished he would be elsewhere, in a different time, dancing with somebody else. 

After all, maybe this was his curse. Maybe he had always just been a man out of time and always would be. Doomed to be stuck in the past. Stuck on past relationships and lost things that he would never be able to get back. Doomed to never be able to let go and move on. Never able to dance in the present, because in his mind, he would always be dancing with ghosts. Dancing to a music made by the shadows of yesterday, the sound of it scratchy like from an old vinyl record, blurring his mind and making him oblivious to everyone and everything that was right in front of him. That was right there. 

And she had been right there. Nat had been right in front of him and always there for him. Through everything that had happened, everything that had torn his world apart so many times, she had always been by his side, steadying him like a rock to lean on. 

When SHIELD had come crushing down, robbing them both of what they believed in and the place where they thought belonged, she had fought at his side. Her world had fallen apart too, but she had chosen to help him, to give him that file that would help him find Bucky – another ghost of the past that he had chased after for so long. 

When the Sokovia Accords had torn the Avengers apart, and the easy thing would have been to just follow the accords and arrest him, she had given it all up for him, switching sides and helping him escape – consequently having to be on run again. 

When they had lost against Thanos, and all hope had been gone, she had been there by his side once more, giving him exactly what he had needed so desperately – hope. 

Natasha had always been able to do that for him, to give him strength and help him keep going when all he wanted to do was give up. He still remembered that day when he had lost Peggy, and with her perhaps every last thing that he had had left from his past life, when he had felt broken down and alone and lost. He still remembered the feeling of her arms wrapping around him tightly. 

_“I didn’t want you to be alone.”_

He certainly felt alone now, felt so alone like he never had before in his life – not when he had lost Bucky, not when he had lost Peggy, not even when he had woken up after being frozen in the ice for seventy years and the world he had known had been gone. Even with everything else he had lost in his life, all the pain, nothing could have prepared him for the way it felt to loose her, too. He didn’t only feel like he had lost Natasha, but had lost part of himself. Like he had lost all hope, all reason to keep going. 

Maybe it took loosing her to realize how much he really needed her. How she had always been there when he needed someone. 

But when Natasha had needed him most, Steve hadn’t been there – hadn’t been there to catch her or protect her or even jump off that damn cliff himself. 

He had been back in that office of his damn old training facility, looking longingly at Peggy, sometime in a past decade. And if he was honest with himself that hadn’t been the first time he had let Nat down for the past. 

If he was honest with himself, she would have been open for something with him. Sure, it wouldn’t have been easy, but there had always been some kind of connection between them. From the first moment on, he had felt like somehow – despite her false fronts and lies and many identities – he could get to know her, the real her, in time.

He still remembered the first time that she had been truly open with him – in that car, on the run, a lifetime ago. 

_“Who do you want me to be?”_

She had had that look on her face, her eyes asking another unspoken question – asking truly what he wanted them to be, asking if they were anything at all. 

And he had blown his chance, because he had been thinking about Peggy on that car ride. About that kiss that they had shared so many decades ago. And he hated himself for it. Next to him had been this beautiful, strong, amazing woman who didn’t open up easily, but who, for some inexplicable reason, had wanted to open up to him. And he had passed on it, because he had been stuck on Peggy – a ghost from the past, a memory. Peggy had done what he should have done so long ago. She had moved on. She had accepted things the way they were, and had let him go, letting in someone new. 

He should have done the same thing, but instead, Steve had let Natasha go. 

He had let her go before, back at the cemetery after the fall of SHIELD. Back when she had pressed a sweet, tender kiss on his cheek, right before she had looked at him for one last time before turning around. Her soul had seemed open to him then, vulnerable even, more so than he had ever expected her to be, her eyes hopeful, a small pleading in them. _Don’t let me go._ But he had. He had let her go then, and he hadn’t even realized it. Had lost her without even knowing. _“Be careful, Steve,”_ she had said to him. It had felt like a goodbye. 

He had let her go again once more, but this time it was different. This time he hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. She had just left, just slipped though his fingers and he didn’t notice until it was already too late, until she was already out of reach. Didn’t realize he needed her until she was gone. This time it was different, because he could never get her back, would never get another chance. 

Lost in his thoughts, Steve found himself standing still. He had involuntarily stopped dancing without even noticing. He must have stopped moving a fair while ago, too, because he felt Peggy nervously shifting in his arms now. “Is everything alright?” She asked and looked at him with concerned eyes. 

“Yes sorry,” he replied quickly, a bit too quickly perhaps, and looked down at her with a smile – a fake smile. “I’m just so happy to finally be dancing with my best girl that I forgot to actually dance over it.”

He knew exactly what Natasha would have said to him in this moment. 

_“You’re a terrible liar, Steve.”_

It was almost like he could hear her voice in the back of his head. Always present. Always with him. Aways able to see right through him, read him like a book. She was the one who really knew him, who always had somehow. 

His excuse seemed to be satisfying enough for Peggy though, for she hugged him a bit tighter and leaned her head calmly against his chest. 

So Steve pulled her against him, and as he started softly swinging them around the room again, he closed his eyes. The image of the last time he saw that face – _her_ face – burned into the back of his eyelids forever – hair in a loose braid to the side, a smirk on her lips, a flirty glance in her eyes, face bright. 

_“See you in a minute,“_ she had said. 

Oh, all the things he would have replied, if only he would have realized in that moment that he was about to lose the love of his life. 

_Now the day bleeds into nightfall_   
_And you’re not here_   
_To get me through it all_


End file.
